


If Aught of Woe or Wonder

by Madtom_Publius



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-22 11:07:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7434522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madtom_Publius/pseuds/Madtom_Publius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Monmouth, Laurens reflects on some of his actions that day. He and Hamilton discuss what they would be to each other in death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Aught of Woe or Wonder

**Author's Note:**

> Horatio, I am dead;  
> Thou livest; report me and my cause aright  
> To the unsatisfied.  
> Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!  
> If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart  
> Absent thee from felicity awhile,  
> And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,  
> To tell my story.
> 
> Alternatively:
> 
> You have no control, who lives, who dies, who tells your story.

The things which were clear in battle and those which were clear in the aftermath were exact opposites. Sensation became giddily fuzzed in the adrenal chaos, to the point that one could sometimes swear one were hovering over one’s own body, as effected by the corporeal stimuli it received as a puppet master was by the buffetings to his doll. Sensibility, on the other hand, achieved a clarity on the field which never remained after returning to earth. Whatever intense harmony of spirit he reached, whatever pure conviction appeared, instantly became irreparably muddied  by the endless messy realities of the every-day. There was, John thought idly as he lay on his cot and traced the outline of what was rapidly becoming an ugly bruise on Alexander's shoulder, one other circumstance in which he could achieve the same fleeting clarity. Why must the sight of it always carry the price of such terrible sin? At least in battle his actions were excusable, balanced by the nobility of the cause. Nothing balanced the other act. Perhaps his befuddlement was due partly to the attention his abused limbs were demanding. He hadn’t felt any of his wounds until halfway through the surgeon’s ministrations, when his protestations that he was fine and that others should be seen to first turned to grunts and then half-suppressed howls of pain. The heat of the night did nothing to ease his physical or mental discomfort. The only thing that could be said to be anything better than obnoxious was Alexander’s languid but persistent hand pulling through his hair.

Alexander was still shifting around on their pallet. Really, It was too warm to share bed-space comfortably, and it probably would have been best for both of their injuries had each slept on his own bed tonight, but somehow that had been tacitly ruled untenable by both of them.  Finally, Alexander broke the silence which had persisted between them since they’d gained this solitude after the battle. “You are quiet tonight, my Laurens. Is there something your Damon has done to provoke this coldness?”

It was heartbreaking, the more so for being terribly familiar, that Hamilton’s first assumption whenever Laurens retreated was that he’d done something wrong. One day, perhaps, Alexander would be able to trust him enough to understand that it was nothing to do with his behavior, but with the turmoil of John’s mind. Until then Laurens could chock “rude aloofness in melancholy” up as one more way in which he hurt everyone around him. “No, my dear boy. Something from earlier today has been troubling me, that’s all. You are beyond reproach.” That was not strictly true. Alexander could have been more careful of his own wounds and less fussy about John’s, but such a sweet foible need not be mentioned when he was clearly so vulnerable.

Continuing his quest to find the ever-elusive comfortable position (and in doing so assure that neither of them would get any sleep), Alexander took the reassurance as an opportunity to broach his own pondering. “Your actions in today’s engagement were more vigorous than even I could admire, my dear. You know I share your aspirations to die gloriously in the cause of our new nation, but you were needlessly reckless. Nor I nor your country can afford to lose you unnecessarily.” Alexander’s voice, normally so brash and compelling, became small and hesitant when he spoke of the perilous well-being of those he loved. John didn’t need to ask why.

“I know,” Laurens replied, and before he could stop it, all the muddied clarity was slipping past his lips to torment his friend. “It didn’t start out that way. It was after… I thought… I thought I’d lost you.” Suddenly Alexander was sitting up on one elbow, which must have hurt, intense confusion and anger writ all over his face. “When your horse was shot… I didn’t have a clear sight and I thought you’d both been hit. And then it was on top of you and you weren’t moving, and there was so much blood… I thought you were dead. And… perhaps I’ve been immersing myself too fully in the classics, I don’t know… but when I saw you, as I thought, killed before my eyes, I… suddenly the only thing I wanted in this world, the only thing that mattered was that I be lying there with you. That we fall together. Everything disappeared, the cause, the strategy, everything. I wanted to kill as many of them as I could before I joined you. It… it was what I imagine Achilles felt when he beheld his Patroclus so destroyed… I could not conceive of the value of a world without you, of my life without you, of the justice of a God who would let you be cut down like that… I was furious when I did not achieve my end, until I saw you in the surgeon’s tent… I could have laughed.” Of course, now he saw nothing funny in the awful turn his mind had taken.

And neither did Alexander. He scrambled shakily to his feet, doing his best to keep his face turned away as he hastily laid out his own pallet several feet from John’s. “You should not have done that,” he managed to get out, followed by a loud sniff, but whether from grief or anger or some terrible combination, John couldn’t tell. He wanted to reach out and pull Alexander back, to say something that would halt the gates inside him from slamming shut, but how could he? This was to be expected, after all. It was as his father had told him: nothing was more vile and pathetic than a man who could be so enamored of that act.

About half an hour into Laurens reflecting on how every bit of pain coursing through him was fitting and deserved punishment for his selfish and cowardly actions, and that it would be only right for Alexander to want nothing more to do with him after such an admission, and what he could possibly do to earn forgiveness from his friend, his reverie was interrupted by a soft voice from the few feet away where Alexander had seen fit to deposit himself. “Are you asleep?”

Between the aftereffects of adrenaline, his wounds, and the revulsion he felt for himself, John doubted very much that sleep would be possible for him at all tonight. “No,” he answered, trying to keep his voice neutral, trying to keep himself from hoping for what he had not earned.

Hamilton turned over to face him painstakingly slowly, moving significantly closer in the process. His face was all incredulous and tender concern. “Did you really wish to die because you’d lost me?” The question was selfish. Part of him knew that, but he couldn’t care.

Nodding, Laurens answered “To my great shame, it is hardly the first time such a desire has crossed my mind.” He added hastily as his friend’s face started to fall “When we all thought you’d drowned in the Schuylkill and then when we thought you dead from your fever. My will to continue faltered then as well.” Alexander didn’t need to know about the ever-present allure exit held for him. Most days he could reduce it to a comfortable buzzing in the back of his mind, largely ignored. And when Alexander was with him he could hardly hear it at all.

The silence between them stretched out like it planned to stay there forever. Finally, Alexander pushed through the conflicting feelings clamoring for outlet “I had no idea my life meant so much to anyone.” John was aghast. It could not be, it defied all propriety that Alexander could be _touched_ by his foolishness. “And while I should chide you for it, I find I can’t. I never thought anyone would have cared. And if you can have no relish of a world without me then that can mean nothing else but that you—“ He faltered, which for him was practically unheard of, but then so was this sort of honesty. John closed the gap between them, wincing as his body protested, to fold Alexander into an embrace and let his actions communicate what he would doubtless mangle with words. When he’d recovered himself, Hamilton continued. “But I do not share your Attic disposition, at least not enough to wish for you to fall with me. I don’t want my last thought to be that you too have been destroyed. There’s so much I hope to do, you see, and if I should perish, my dear, you must be my Horatio.”

While he admired Alexander’s ability to shift so smoothly from one vein of classical allusion into another, John wasn’t quite sure he understood. “You would have me tell the world about you?”

John could feel Alexander laughing against his shoulder at his misconception. “Not exactly. But if I fall, and am unable to accomplish what I hope to, then you must accomplish it for me. I would sleep easier in what is sure to be an unmarked and unremembered grave if I knew that you were protecting and cherishing my legacy, even if no one else knew that’s what it was. It would not be the fame I long for, but I’d live on, albeit in a different way. And I think it would be a much more suitable expression of your devotion than challenging all of Troy until she finally obliged your grief. But yes, I would like you to tell the world about me, dear Laurens. You know how I adore being the center of everyone’s attention.” Alexander shuffled closer against him, and they both had to muffle groans as they enflamed each other’s bruises. “I think tomorrow I shall make you a list of how you must honor my memory should I fall gloriously in pursuit of our independence. I suppose it shall stand in place of my will, for as you know I have nothing of value to pass on.”

Now it was John’s turn for his emotions to choke his speech. His Hamilton was not disgusted with him, not even angry with him, was rather tenderly impressed with his motives, even if the action they produced was not ideal. And he knew, of course he knew, he always did, just what to say to make John feel loved, feel worthy, feel driven to always live up to the trust Alexander placed in him. Was it any wonder that a world without such beautiful offices of friendship appeared so stale and unprofitable? There were other reasons, of course, that death called to him. He didn’t even understand all of them. And perhaps this wouldn’t be enough, in the end, to preserve him from that siren’s song. But for now, his heart was so full he could scarcely breathe. “I shall regard it as my sacred duty, my dear. Though I pray I shall never have need to perform it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally authored by Mad Tom Edgar.
> 
> Originally posted: http://madtomedgar.tumblr.com/post/137138038132/fic-below-the-cut-post-monmouth-warning-for
> 
> and: http://madtomedgar.tumblr.com/post/137193652672/immediate-non-sad-follow-up-to-this-fic-some


End file.
